Sweet Sadness : Apple Streusel Bars

Apple Streusel Bars, originally uploaded by miss.mallory.

I've been doing my best to be consistent with blogging. For me, that's become posting every Wednesday, at least for the last few weeks. Clearly, Wednesday has come and gone, and still, no post. I could give you excuses: it's just been one of those weeks, car trouble, I've been busy, the cranberries I planned to use in my recipe refused to dry overnight so I had to start the process all over again on Wednesday. While all of those things are entirely true, I kind of hate excuses. Do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. That's the kind of girl I am. Although, I suppose I never actually announced, 'I'll be blogging every Wednesday folks'. But, I can see from my traffic stats that many of you have caught on to my unofficial Wednesday rule. Enough babble eh? Let's get down to it. This isn't my Wednesday post, nope, that post will be up tomorrow. This is simply a 'tide you over until the real deal happens' post.

The Top Chef finale was last night, meaning I simply had to cook or bake something a little special. After getting home late I was too tired for a complicated meal, so a salad it was for dinner, and baking it had to be in honor of Top Chef. A few weeks ago I stumbled across Honey & Jam. An amazing food blog created by an uber talented amazing young woman. I'm sure most of you food bloggers and readers are already familiar with her and her work, but if not, it's a must read (on a regular basis). A week or so ago she posted the most enticing pictures of these Apple Streusel Bars. Our local apple bounty is still in full force, and not having got my fair share during Thanksgiving I put these bars on my immediate 'to be baked' list. Last night was the night for it. All I needed were apples and a pint of good vanilla ice cream. I made two slight alterations to the original recipe she has posted. First, I used a slightly larger pan so that I could put all of the crust on the bottom and instead of reserving some of the crust for the topping I made an oatmeal streusel. I swapped out the powdered sugar glaze for a cinnamon and brown sugar one, which simply consists of 2 parts brown sugar to one part heavy cream with a dash or two of cinnamon. I have to say I love this simple recipe. It's right up my dessert alley. The crust was incredibly crumbly and isn't ultra sweet, the granny smith apples I used were perfectly tart, and the glaze added the perfect punch of sweet. Since I ended up with a plateful of mixed greens and berries for dinner, I paired the Top Chef finale with a very healthy dose of these bars and vanilla ice cream. While the ultimate Top Chef outcome wasn't what I had wished (team Kevin!) this sweet treat distracted me from my momentary misery. Be sure to check out Honey & Jam and come back tomorrow for cranberry blondies with meyer lemon cream cheese frosting!

Apple Streusel Bars, originally uploaded by miss.mallory.